How PDP caused ASUU strike – Festus Keyamo

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has blamed Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

How PDP caused ASUU strike: Keyamo said ASUU is on strike because of the 2009 agreement signed by the PDP-led government

According to the APC chieftain, between 1999 and 2015, ASUU was on strike 12 times, totalling 900 days.

“The ASUU thing you are talking about. What is the problem of ASUU now? It’s the 2009 agreement signed by PDP government. They signed agreements with ASUU they couldn’t fulfill. We had to inherit those agreements and now struggling to renegotiate those agreements,” Keyamo said in an interview with Trust TV on Monday, August 15, 2022, evening, monitored by this newspaper.

“Imagine how irresponsible a government can be when they went into agreements with ASUU and signed conditions that they couldn’t fulfill and that is why ASUU is on strike so let us tell Nigerians that ASUU is not on strike because APC signed an agreement with them. It was the PDP that signed the agreement.

“We are not shifting blame; we are going to tackle the problem. Between 1999 and 2015 when they handed over to the APC, ASUU was on strike 12 times. I have the statistics amounting to 900 days.”

What you should know: The union will have a meeting with the Federal Government to address its ongoing strike action today (Tuesday).

Keyamo's politics: In April 2018, Keyamo was appointed as the director of Strategic Communications of the 2019 re-election bid of President Buhari.

He recently accepted to be the spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council.